Windows 10 and single level folder structure in start menu
In my setup projects I have declared some folders with subfolders in Windows Start menu. So I have more levels in my folder structure.
In WIndows 10 this hierarchical folder structure is broken. It seems that only single level structure is allowed.
Is there any option in Installshield in order to prevent that all the subfolder elements are copied in the same start menu folder ? this create a single folder with a lot of confusion.
This behavior is determined by Windows, and this sounds like it mirrors the behavior in the Windows 8 and 8.1 start screen. My only suggestions at this point are to either limit the number of shortcuts that you install, or consider installing them in multiple top-level folders. I haven't tried the latter yet, but given carefully selected folder names, it seems like it could do the trick. I'd love to see other ideas on how to handle this for applications that legitimately have more than a couple shortcuts.
In Windows 8.1, the start menu came back and retained the folder structure. This is no longer the case in Windows 10.
Is there a flag or way to instruct InstallShield to have the root level folder or not? Until now, we've kept all our products in our company name folder, then separate folders for each product. Now, all the links are at the top level without any of the subfolders. What a mess.
If I could determine if the O/S is Windows 10, I could fix this. How do I do that?
Suggestions welcome. Thanks.
MichaelU wrote: This behavior is determined by Windows, and this sounds like it mirrors the behavior in the Windows 8 and 8.1 start screen. My only suggestions at this point are to either limit the number of shortcuts that you install, or consider installing them in multiple top-level folders. I haven't tried the latter yet, but given carefully selected folder names, it seems like it could do the trick. I'd love to see other ideas on how to handle this for applications that legitimately have more than a couple shortcuts.
Shortcuts are installed into directory entries, so you can definitely modify their location as long as their identifier is in ALL CAPS. But you're right, the trick is knowing when you need to do so. I'd probably suggest dodging that, and just doing this on Windows 8.1 and up (i.e. VersionNT >= 603), unless it clearly makes things worse on Windows 8.1.
The only option I can recommend for detecting Windows 10 in an .msi project is to include it in a Suite/Advanced UI or Advanced UI project, and pass a custom property on the command line, e.g. [FONT=Courier New]ISVERSIONNT=[@Platform.FullVersion][/FONT]. Once you've done this, you can reference the ISVERSIONNT property where you would normally reference VersionNT. However note that this approach requires launching your installation from the suite exe, not the raw .msi file; if there is any chance that it will be run without the launcher, you may need to handle the ISVERSIONNT property being empty.
